As loyal customers of Tillamook, we have long believed your advertising about the source of your milk: family farms in Tillamook county, raising cows humanely on pasture, letting them roam free on rolling green hills.

Tillamook claims to be the answer to Big Food and “Dairy Done Right,” but in reality, the majority of the milk that goes into Tillamook dairy products, including the signature cheddar cheeses, comes from the nation’s largest industrial confinement mega-dairy in Eastern Oregon—quintessential “Big Food.”

Threemile Canyon is permitted for 70,000 cows, or 100 times larger than a “large” dairy confined animal feeding operation, and produces more waste than Portland. Unlike small or mid-sized pasture-based dairies, industrial mega-dairies also use massive amounts of fresh water and are major polluters, generating huge quantities of waste that is disposed of⁠—virtually untreated⁠—on land where it can contaminate rivers, streams, and groundwater and harm wildlife. The noxious air emissions these facilities produce can threaten public health, contribute to climate change, and decrease visibility in special places like the Columbia Gorge.

Tillamook bought milk from the disastrous Lost Valley Farm, before that operation (permitted for 30,000 cows) was shut down after racking up over 200 environmental violations in its year and a half of operation. A new operation (Easterday) has bought the Lost Valley Farm facility and has applied for another permit for nearly 30,000 cows.

Sign and share today to tell Tillamook that customers want them to drop Big Dairy for good.

Tillamook markets its products as sustainable and humane, but the conditions at these mega-dairies tell another story: cows are intensively confined with little or no access to pasture, and waste is concentrated in open-air pits to be sprayed on surrounding fields, emitting air pollutants with no government oversight. Tillamook has profited from the goodwill generated by its past practices and current marketing, but Tillamook is the “Big Food” industrial model it decries.

That is why we demand that Tillamook say goodbye to mega-dairies. Tillamook must live up to its ideals and be the truth of what it claims in its advertising. This means sourcing from Oregon family farmers who raise animals humanely and sustainably on pasture, not mega-dairies that pollute surrounding communities and our special places, and contribute to climate change.

Specifically we demand that Tillamook not source milk from mega-dairies like Threemile Canyon and the new Easterday mega-dairy replacing Lost Valley Farm, if it reopens. If Tillamook cannot be the truth of its advertising, it no longer deserves to profit from the name “Tillamook.” Until Tillamook makes these changes, we the undersigned will no longer purchase any Tillamook dairy products.